The Beginning Of History

Source: Where’s Your Ed At Date: 2026-03-10 URL: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-beginning-of-history/

Summary

Ed argues the AI industry faces imminent structural collapse driven by converging crises: Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz spiking energy costs and interest rates, making debt-dependent AI infrastructure economically unviable. Key evidence: Anthropic’s CFO affidavit revealed lifetime revenue of only $5B against $10B in compute spending — contradicting the “$19B annualized revenue” figure used in public narratives. Ed targets media and investors for uncritically accepting company narratives and historical analogies (“Amazon lost money too”) instead of analyzing actual economics.

Implications

• AI financial sustainability. The Anthropic CFO affidavit is a primary source — $5B lifetime revenue against $10B compute spending is the real number that makes “annualized revenue” claims misleading rather than informative.
• Capital markets. External macro shocks (energy costs, interest rates) are the underappreciated risk to debt-funded AI infrastructure; the Strait of Hormuz scenario makes explicit that AI economics aren’t insulated from geopolitical disruption.
• Vendor BS detection. “Annualized revenue” vs. “lifetime revenue” is the precise accounting manipulation Ed identifies — the same nominal number made to sound 3-4x larger by changing the time frame.